This invention relates to apparatus and a method for cultivating land. Specifically, the invention incorporates the simultaneous digging of one or more trenches by angularly slitting the soil to define spaced apart trench lines, removing the soil from the slit trench and raising it into the apparatus for conditioning and subsequently conveying the soil, under pressure, back into the trench.
In practice, the present invention provides a yearly, once over method of combining the tillage soil condition and seeding for general grain or other farming. The method includes cutting strips of soil from a preselected width, depth and interval on land which could have been previously cultivated. The cut strips of soil are removed to leave an open trench or trenches with an undisturbed portion of soil therebetween. The soil which is removed from the trench is passed through the apparatus and can be conditioned in such a way as to enhance future plant growth and to substantially eliminate undesirable weed growth. Subsequently, the soil is replaced in whole or in part into the open trench or onto the undisturbed portion of soil between, or adjacent to, the trenches.
Some examples of the art to which the apparatus relates are seen in U.S. Pat. No. 2,884,742, Moore et al, May 5, 1959 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,880,099, Houston et al, Apr. 29, 1975.
The Moore patent discloses a machine for picking up all the soil in its path. The soil is carried upwardly and rearwardly into the confines of the apparatus where the soil is pulverized and if necessary mixed with desired solvents etc. The conditioned soil is passed rearwardly to a device for returning the soil to the ground. The Patent to Houston shows an apparatus for conserving moisture for growing crops where angled discs are used for creating a slit trench so that an inclined watershed area is provided adjacent to the slit trench for drainage of water therein so that the water may be held for some time for the growth of crops.